TIL that 'networking' isn't just shaking hands and handing out business cards
I used to think networking was the biggest waste of time, like a fake game where you pretend to care about someone's golf game just to get a job lead. Last year at a local tech meetup in Austin, I got cornered by a guy who builds APIs for a living and we ended up talking for an hour about why his dog hates thunder. No sales pitch, no resume swap, just a real conversation about something dumb and funny. Six months later, he remembered me when his company needed a backend dev and I got a referral. That was the moment it clicked for me, you know? Networking is just making friends who happen to work in your field. Has anyone else had a random chat turn into something big for your career?